Opinion The dying game
Karnataka,once hockeys sweet spot,now reflects the national lack of interest in the sport.
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Bangalores blazing though blessedly brief summer-gone-by gives a glimpse of the future state of hockey. The onset of globalisation is slowly decimating the graceful game of flicking and hitting the ball with a curved stick. The games decline in Bangalore and in Karnataka,where it was once celebrated,foreshadows hockeys diminishing glory elsewhere in the country.
Kannan Krishnamurthy,secretary of Karnatakas Hockey Association has a ringside view. He sees what used to be a much-sought-after summer coaching camp at the association turning into a desultory affair in recent years. This summer,there were a mere 30 enrolments. The year-round training camp at the association to groom serious young hockey talent is in poor shape. There were only 80 applicants this year and,expectedly,many dropouts through the months.
Not so many years ago,Bangalore used to the countrys hockey capital. Or,as a game website evocatively describes,a hockey paradise. Talent abounded and poured in from everywhere from the Mangalore coast,the hills of Coorg and the plains of northern Karnataka. Topping it all,Bangalores Anglo-Indian population avidly nurtured hockey in schools such as Frank Anthonys and Francis Xaviers.
Today,the slide is evident all around. Young boys and girls who play the game treat it as recreational. Barring the Jawaharlal Nehru Hockey Tournament,school-level hockey competitions lack intensity. Hockey selectors have little choice as the talent pipeline is dry,says Krishnamurthy,a former international umpire and game manager.
The reasons are many,and globalisation is playing its role. In an India television-fed on American NBA basketball games,European football leagues and IPL cricket,school kids (and their parents) do not see the glamour in hockey. Barring international hockey,the game is no longer spectator-backed. Cricket,football and even tennis have overtaken hockey in the earnings stakes. Hockey is becoming a game shunned by the affluent. Even the middle classes who once took to it for its employment potential in government-owned corporations now shy away.
Amongst the Anglo-Indians,there is still a mine of talent,says Shanmugham P. who runs the Jude Felix Hockey Academy in the Cooke Town area where he currently coaches 60 children coming from vulnerable backgrounds. But neighbourhood clubs in localities are becoming extinct because of the citys 24×7 work culture and the enticing night-day customer support jobs,says Shanmugham. If people work all night,how can they play in the morning,he asks.
So,history is dying in Karnataka which bred a steady stream of great players such as India captain Somayya Maneypande,goalkeeper Ashish Ballal and even the current striker Arjun Halappa. Perhaps the only saving grace in all this is ongoing tradition of the Kodava Hockey Festival held each summer in Coorg,a five-hour drive from Bangalore. This summers tournament,in its 15th year,had 225 participating family teams consisting of fathers,brothers,cousins and blood relatives of every hue. Hamlets,villages and entire communities in the coffee-growing region get caught up in the competitive spirit.
But Mohan Aiyappa,a former national level player,who is in the record books for holding the family hockey tournament,says the future looks bleak. Between the stresses of an education system where parents want the children to study all day,and kids who cannot get enough of television or video games in their spare time,there is no time for hockey in Coorg,once hockeys bastion. Or else,what explains the state where a once glorious,hockey-loving country of 1.2 billion people runs short of talent,he asks.
Aiyappa says he chokes up when he sees schoolchildren in Coorg walking back home in the evenings hockey stick in hand. That once-common sight is slowly becoming less frequent,signalling hockeys downfall in this country,he laments.
saritha.rai@expressindia.com
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